MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS

By Aleister Crowley

Chapter LIX: Geomancy

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Your last letter has really put me up a gum tree. I do not see how I
can write you an account of Geomancy. At first sight it looks as if
all I could do was to refer you to the official text book of that sublime
and difficult art. You will find in the Equinox, Volume I, No.
2. (or am I mistaken and its is No. 4?) I cannot bother to refer to it,
and the books are not under my hand.1

There is, of course, a short account in Magick and I do not think that
it is a very satisfactory one, certainly not in view of what you have
asked me. No, it certainly won't do at all.

The main point of your letter appears to be a question as to whether I
think it worth your while to devote a great amount of time to it;
whether its usefulness repays the pains required to master it.

Now here we come to a question of personality. The first thing to
remember about Geomancy is that although the various intelligences are
attributed to the twelve signs of the Zodiac they all appertain to the
element of earth. Anyone therefore who has got in his nativity an
earthy sign rising, or the sun in an earthly sign, or a good proportion
of planets in an earthy sign, is much more likely to find Geomancy
attractive than anyone the principal features of whose horoscope are
devoted to other elements, especially air, which of course is the enemy
of earth.

Now these remarks apply of course very much to the type of question
that is likely to be within the grasp of the Geomantic Intelligences,
that must certainly be considered as well as the natural faculty of the
practitioner to master the art.

I ought of course to emphasize that I am just the worst person in the
habitable globe that you could have asked about this matter, as my
rising sign and my planets are all in fire, air, or water, except
Neptune, which as Astrology teaches, refers not so much to the Native
as to the period of life.

It has accordingly been exceptionally difficult for me to be of much
use to people who have come to me with enquiries similar to yours, still
more when they have planted themselves down solidly at my feet and
insisted on my teaching them. There is, however, a certain meagre
harvest to be gained from my experience. I should like to tell you what
happened to such a man.2

A resident of Johannesburg and singularly gifted with the power of
getting physical results to take place as a result of Magical experiments.
This man was as strongly attracted to Geomancy as I was repelled, and I
do not know that it would be fair for me to claim that I had been of any
special use to him, though he was always kind enough to say so.

When I pointed out that the answers to Geomantic questions were so vague
and indeterminate he had already devised a method whereby this difficulty
(which he admitted as existing) could be overcome.

It is of course of the very first importance in Geomancy to frame your
questions accurately; for the Intelligences serving the Art delight in
tricksome gambols. If there is a possibility of assigning a double meaning
to the question you can bank on their finding it, and deceiving you.

Of all this my disciple was well aware; and he had become extremely
artful in allowing no ambiguity to spoil any of his questions.

But as to the further difficulty about their vagueness, what he did was
to arrange a series of questions narrowing the issue step by step until
he had succeeded in obtaining a precise instruction which would resolve
his original difficulty.

I do think, as a matter of fact, that I was able to help to some extent
on the purely theoretical side of the Art, and he went back to South
Africa feeling himself fully equipped to deal with any problem that
might arise.

At that time we were particularly anxious to wind up the first volume
of the Equinox with a No. 10, which should be a really massive contribution
to Magical thought. That meant a very considerable increase in
the cost of production. All this my Disciple, of course, knew, and on
arriving in Johannesburg he said to himself "Well, here I am in a part
of the world where the earth teams with gold and diamonds. I will
procure the necessary funds for the Equinox_and various other financial
necessities of the Work by Geomantic divination.

Now, then, he thought, in and about Johannesburg we have both gold and
diamonds; that is exactly the chance for these tricky earth spirits to
take advantage of the ambiguity. I will therefore frame the question
so as to cover both sources of riches. I will not specify gold or
diamonds. I will say simply "mineral wealth."

The answers to his series of questions indicated that he was to go out
of the city where he would find a deposit.

The next questions in his series were directed to finding the direction
in which he should start his exploration. That was easy.

The next question was the distance involved, and he could think of no
way of framing questions which would inform him on that very important
point. He got at it indirectly, however, by asking as to his means of
transport, and as to that the answer was quite clear and unmistakable.

He was to use a horse.

Well, he had a Boer pony, and next morning he set forth with provisions
for a day's journey.

On and on he went and found no geological indication of any mineral
wealth. Presently he began to get tired and thought it was a little
late. He could see in every direction across the Veldt and there was
nothing at all. A mile or so in front of him, however, was a row of
small kopjes. He said, I may as well go on and get a view from the top.

This he did; and there was still no geological pointer. It struck him,
however, that he was getting short of water; and just below on the far
side of the kopje were a number of apparently shallow pools.

"I will fill my skin and give my horse a drink and get home feeling like a fool."

But, when he got to the water, his horse turned sharply aside and refused
to drink. At that he dismounted and put his finger in the water to test
it. He had struck one of the most important deposits of alkali in South
Africa. Mineral wealth indeed!

He went home rejoicing and took the necessary steps to protect his find.
In the course of the formalities he found it necessary to come to London,
which he did, and told me the whole story.

Unfortunately we end with an anti-climax. The negotiations went wrong;
and the property was stolen from under his nose by one of the big alkali
firms. However, it was a good mark for Geomancy.

I am afraid that all this is a digression. As I indicated above, what
you want to know is to be found in the official instruction on the subject
in the Equinox.

Now far be it from me to cast any doubt on any official instruction, but
I cannot help saying that in this particular instance it does not give
very full details, and I think you would be well advised to investigate
the whole subject afresh, basing you enquiry on the general principles
of the science.

You will presumably have noticed that the Geomantic figures are derived
from taking the permutations of two things, four at a time, just as the
trigrams of Fu-Hsi are two things taken three at a time, and the Hexa-
grams of the Yi are two things taken six at a time.

The system is consequently based upon 16 figures and no more. Of course
all systems of divinations which have any claim to be reasonable are
based upon a map of the universe, or at least the Solar system, and 16
is really rather a limited number of units to manipulate.

However, if you are the type of person who has a natural bent towards
this particular Art you will be able to develop it on your own lines,
guided by your own experience.

I do not think there is anything further to add to these scattered
remarks except that so far as I know none of the treatises on the subject
(with the single exception of the official instruction) are any use at all.

I feel rather acutely how unsatisfactory these remarks must sound to you,
but it is the best that I can do for you. You must regard it either as
an excuse, or a confession of incompetence, that I have always had this
instinctive distaste for the subject.

Love is the law, love under will.

Yours fraternally,

666

1: The item on "Geomancy" is in Equinox, Vol I, No. 2.
The method provided there is the French adaptation of an African method like the Ifa
Oracle of the Yoruba people at Great Zimbabwe. This technique has superficial
similarities to the Yi King, and four-line Geomancy was known in Europe from late
Medieval times. The Geomancy mentioned in The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin and
in a few stories of the Arabian Nights is usually based on recognition of shapes,
including Arabic letters, in randomly disturbed sand. This French method uses
a count of odd or even in a series of random strikes against a sand or earth surface
to determine the figure – WEH.
The instruction in the Equinox is taken almost verbatim from a Golden Dawn paper,
itself adapted from the treatise on Geomancy attributed to Agrippa which was published in
the 16th century (see Agrippa, Opera, vol. I). Certain crucial omissions were
made and the method was delinated very unclearly; the version in Regardie (ed.) The
Golden Dawn is more intelligible although it omits some of the tables which appear
in the Equinox publication – T.S.

2: According to the version of this story in Confessions, this was
James Windram, Frater Semper Paratus, who later became head of the South African section of
the O.T.O. under Crowley – T.S.

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